There ain't nobody here but us chickens
Loves,
So sorry it's been so long--we had practice school for the past ten days and it's been out of control intense. I'll write more about that after I explain the chickens lyric.
After dinner the other night, on the way to the outhouse, I saw my host mom, standing in the middle of her farm, blood dripping from her elbows and gathering in bracelets around her wrists. I ran towards her frantically asking what happened, as she, almost singing to me, explained--this is the work of men, I'm sorry you have to see this, this isn't work for women. I looked down at her ankles, both covered in blood. And then it hit me, that she has literally one moment ago slaughtered a chicken, whose head was besides a bucket with it's upside-down body. My host brother came to pluck the feathers out, and gave them one by one, like little candies, to all of the animals. I immediately started crying, not being able to control it, but then felt intensely culturally insensitive, so I proceeded, throught my tears and in Romanian to ask questiosn--So, tatiana (I said with my neck craned as to not see the feather-fest in front of me), what will you do with the head of the chicken? Do you eat all of the organs? Are you going to cook it tonight, or tomorrow? And then, still crying and still feeling horrible that I couldn't stop crying about somethign so normal in her life, I actually asked her--
--will you need help cooking the chicken?
What was I thinking? I had to chop chicken that night, and the family ate it for the next four days. In the morning after the occurence, I found the neighborhood cat bouncing the dead chicken's beak between its two front paws, as it stood on the two back paws. That night I buried the beak, as the children's song--there ain't nobody here but us chicken--vibrated through my thoughts.
I've spoken about about the sunflower fields. They are getting larger and more yellow as the days pass. But don't get too excited, because you can't frolic in them. Why, you ask? Because there's no word for frolicing in Romanian. Thus, when I asked my language teacher about the translation of frolic, in his this Romanian accent he replied: We do not do this here.
However, what you can do, is pull a chicken of sleep. What does that mean? It means to take a nap. When I want to nap, I have to literally say to my host mother, that I am going to pull a chicken of sleep. Similar to cat nap but funnier.
So, practice school. A huge part of our job here is not just to work in schools and educate students, it's also to work with Moldovan partner teachers to teach alternative teaching styles. For example, during soviet times in Moldova (until 1991) there was a very specific way to teach--in front of the class, lecturing for 45 minutes with very little activity for the students. I've been told that this has taught students to memorize exact definitions from textbooks, in order to spit it back to the their teachers when asked, but has failed to challenge them to think much deeper than that. Which is why the Ministry of Education asked the Peace Corps to come in and work with teachers. The teachers want to learn more but obviously don't have the time or money to attend trainings. So we do it together. We demonstrate how doing a role play or writing a short story can be a way of learning. We talk about different learning styles, etc.
Practice school is the first time we teach in Romanian, with our partner teachers, who are Moldovan host country nationals. Most of them sought out volunteers, so are pretty excited to teach together. But it's pretty intense, I imagine, for someone who's been teaching a certain way for 20 years then have this young american counterpart to co-teach with. But they were incredibly receptive and patient with us. And I got to prove to my partner teacher that I could teach a class for 45 minutes in Romanian, which she didn't really believe I'd be able to do. So kids from Mitoc, my village until Aug 17, came to school for a week to learn about health. It was pretty cool. We had 12 year olds taking about gender roles and non violence. And for some reason, they take what we say pretty seriously--it's the mystery of knowledge that comes from americans I suppose.
I signed my name 120 times that week. Why do they want my signature? I have no idea. We also had someone stand up in front of the class, and in efforts to say that she was excited for class that day, explained that she was in fact aroused for class. I heard a story of someone yelling "die, die die," to his students, "why aren't you dying??" He meant to ask why there weren't drawing. It's hard to teach in another language. The slightest intonation difference can change the entire meaning.
This week we are holding a seminar about AIDS/HIV and TB in Mitoc, for the parents, with our medical partners from our future sites. Thus, the midwive from Soroca came down, and we'll lead the session on Wednesday. On the 17th I move to Soroca, where I just realized, I'll live for two years--the longest I've lived anywhere since high school.
That's all for now. Sorry it took so long to post. If you're planning on visiting me, remember, there will be no frolicing.
Love.
So sorry it's been so long--we had practice school for the past ten days and it's been out of control intense. I'll write more about that after I explain the chickens lyric.
After dinner the other night, on the way to the outhouse, I saw my host mom, standing in the middle of her farm, blood dripping from her elbows and gathering in bracelets around her wrists. I ran towards her frantically asking what happened, as she, almost singing to me, explained--this is the work of men, I'm sorry you have to see this, this isn't work for women. I looked down at her ankles, both covered in blood. And then it hit me, that she has literally one moment ago slaughtered a chicken, whose head was besides a bucket with it's upside-down body. My host brother came to pluck the feathers out, and gave them one by one, like little candies, to all of the animals. I immediately started crying, not being able to control it, but then felt intensely culturally insensitive, so I proceeded, throught my tears and in Romanian to ask questiosn--So, tatiana (I said with my neck craned as to not see the feather-fest in front of me), what will you do with the head of the chicken? Do you eat all of the organs? Are you going to cook it tonight, or tomorrow? And then, still crying and still feeling horrible that I couldn't stop crying about somethign so normal in her life, I actually asked her--
--will you need help cooking the chicken?
What was I thinking? I had to chop chicken that night, and the family ate it for the next four days. In the morning after the occurence, I found the neighborhood cat bouncing the dead chicken's beak between its two front paws, as it stood on the two back paws. That night I buried the beak, as the children's song--there ain't nobody here but us chicken--vibrated through my thoughts.
I've spoken about about the sunflower fields. They are getting larger and more yellow as the days pass. But don't get too excited, because you can't frolic in them. Why, you ask? Because there's no word for frolicing in Romanian. Thus, when I asked my language teacher about the translation of frolic, in his this Romanian accent he replied: We do not do this here.
However, what you can do, is pull a chicken of sleep. What does that mean? It means to take a nap. When I want to nap, I have to literally say to my host mother, that I am going to pull a chicken of sleep. Similar to cat nap but funnier.
So, practice school. A huge part of our job here is not just to work in schools and educate students, it's also to work with Moldovan partner teachers to teach alternative teaching styles. For example, during soviet times in Moldova (until 1991) there was a very specific way to teach--in front of the class, lecturing for 45 minutes with very little activity for the students. I've been told that this has taught students to memorize exact definitions from textbooks, in order to spit it back to the their teachers when asked, but has failed to challenge them to think much deeper than that. Which is why the Ministry of Education asked the Peace Corps to come in and work with teachers. The teachers want to learn more but obviously don't have the time or money to attend trainings. So we do it together. We demonstrate how doing a role play or writing a short story can be a way of learning. We talk about different learning styles, etc.
Practice school is the first time we teach in Romanian, with our partner teachers, who are Moldovan host country nationals. Most of them sought out volunteers, so are pretty excited to teach together. But it's pretty intense, I imagine, for someone who's been teaching a certain way for 20 years then have this young american counterpart to co-teach with. But they were incredibly receptive and patient with us. And I got to prove to my partner teacher that I could teach a class for 45 minutes in Romanian, which she didn't really believe I'd be able to do. So kids from Mitoc, my village until Aug 17, came to school for a week to learn about health. It was pretty cool. We had 12 year olds taking about gender roles and non violence. And for some reason, they take what we say pretty seriously--it's the mystery of knowledge that comes from americans I suppose.
I signed my name 120 times that week. Why do they want my signature? I have no idea. We also had someone stand up in front of the class, and in efforts to say that she was excited for class that day, explained that she was in fact aroused for class. I heard a story of someone yelling "die, die die," to his students, "why aren't you dying??" He meant to ask why there weren't drawing. It's hard to teach in another language. The slightest intonation difference can change the entire meaning.
This week we are holding a seminar about AIDS/HIV and TB in Mitoc, for the parents, with our medical partners from our future sites. Thus, the midwive from Soroca came down, and we'll lead the session on Wednesday. On the 17th I move to Soroca, where I just realized, I'll live for two years--the longest I've lived anywhere since high school.
That's all for now. Sorry it took so long to post. If you're planning on visiting me, remember, there will be no frolicing.
Love.
posted by NikkiD | 7:25 AM
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